Mikael
Mikael was a major recurring character and a primary antagonist in the second season of The Originals. He appeared in the first season via flashbacks and was eventually brought back to life. Mikael also appeared as a recurring character in the third season of The Vampire Diaries. He was an Original Vampire and a powerful vampire hunter. As he was the father of the Original Vampires, he was the oldest and one of the most powerful vampires in the series. Mikael was the husband of Esther. He was the father of Freya, Finn, Elijah, Kol, Rebekah and Henrik. He was the grandfather of an unnamed grandson. Mikael was also the step-father of Niklaus Mikaelson and step-grandfather of Hope Mikaelson, and the brother- in-law of Dahlia. Mikael was considered the strongest vampire in existence, due to his superior strength as a human over his children. He had an antagonistic relationship with his step-son, Klaus, as he was the son of a werewolf named Ansel. In the 1990's, Mikael was desiccated and entombed by Abby Bennett Wilson when he came to town in search of the baby doppelgänger, Elena Gilbert. However, in The Reckoning, he was revived by Katerina Petrova and Jeremy Gilbert. He then sought out Damon and Stefan Salvatore and formed a plan with them to kill Klaus. However, in Homecoming, Mikael was killed by Klaus due to Stefan's interference. Mikael was later seen in the first season of The Originals during A Closer Walk With Thee, ''when he first appeared as a ghost to attack Hayley Marshall on the Other Side, and again in order to speak with Davina Claire. He eventually convinced her to resurrect him by offering to help her kill Klaus. In ''From a Cradle to a Grave, Mikael was successfully resurrected by Davina, but not without consequences; Davina ultimately used the Bracelet of Obedience to ensure that he would always be under her control. In the second season, Kol used his knowledge of magic to de-spell Davina's bracelet, allowing Mikael to continue on his mission to kill Klaus. After successfully staking and nearly killing Klaus, he ended up outnumbered by the arrival of Klaus' allies, forcing him to flee from a fight with his step-son for the very first time. He eventually formed an alliance with his wife, Esther, and a resurrected Finn, and vowed to stop at nothing to kill Klaus. Finn however, used sacrificial magic to desiccate both Mikael and Esther so that he could channel their power for himself. Mikael was revived by his long lost daughter Freya, reuniting a delighted Mikael with the child he thought he had lost. They formed an alliance to kill Dahlia, who poses a threat to Freya and Hope. Mikael, after a failed team up with his children against Dahlia, was executed by Klaus for a second time, in order to procure the Viking ash Mikael's corpse would leave behind, to make another weapon against Dahlia, all in front of Freya, which devastated her. Mikael was the patriarch of the Mikaelson Family. Pre-history The Middle Ages Mikael was a Viking warrior born in a village in the Kingdom of Norway. During a raid on a village, he met a witch named Esther, and the two fell in love. They married and were wealthy landowners. They tried to start a family but to no avail, as Esther believed she was cursed and went to her sister for help. Unknown to Mikael, Esther's sister Dahlia put a spell on her so she could have children but there would be sacrifices. They then started a family with the birth of their children Freya and Finn. He was a loving and caring father for both of his children, but his favorite was his beloved daughter. Mikael named his Viking sword Rathul, after the early morning sun. Its hilt was golden, like the color of Freya's hair. He had said it would remind him of her while he was in battle, and that she would be by his side no matter how far afield he traveled. Some time later, Esther was pregnant with their son Elijah. Years had passed, and the night before Mikael left for war, he christened his sword with goat's blood. When Freya awoke, he was no longer there as he had gone out to war. A plague hit Europe, and Esther claimed it killed Freya while Mikael was in battle; in reality, Freya was taken as the payment of a magical bargain Esther made with her sister Dahlia, to cure her of her infertility. Desperate to escape their homeland, Esther turned to her witch friend and mentor, Ayana, who told her of a land beyond the seas where the natives were all healthy and blessed with the gifts of speed and strength. At this point, Mikael became a more strict father, becoming more cruel in teaching his children to survive, so he would not lose anymore children like he thought he lost Freya. Mikael, Esther, Ayana and other (possibly Viking) settlers left Norway for the New World (later known as North America), settling in the area now known as Mystic Falls in the present day. However, the New World wasn't as peaceful as the couple had expected, especially during the full moon, as their neighbors were werewolves. They lived in peace with their neighbors at first, hiding in caves during the wolves' transformations, during which time Mikael and Esther had more children: Niklaus, Kol, Rebekah and Henrik. Once, as kids, Elijah took Niklaus into the woods to teach him how to hunt. Elijah encouraged his brother, stating that his aim was improving when he misses a shot at a doe. However, Mikael soon arrived and scolded Elijah for encouraging his brother, snatching the bow from Niklaus and stating that he wasn't man enough to hold a weapon. Niklaus tried to apologize, but Mikael saw him as a weakling and starts severely beating him, using the justification that his punishments would make Niklaus stronger. Elijah tried to stop his father from hurting his brother, but was scared off by Mikael, who stated that Elijah would be next if he intervened. He once beat Niklaus half to death as a boy because he was so sure that Niklaus had taken his blades, unaware that it was actually Rebekah who had taken them. One day, Mikael caught Klaus carving chess pieces with his hunting knife, and Mikael whipped and beat Klaus half to death. Klaus was beaten so badly his siblings actually feared he would die. Elijah entered the room and tried to stop his father, but he pushed Elijah away and continued to punish Klaus until Rebekah eventually ran in with his sword and pointed it at him. Mikael became furious and grabbed his sword from her before leaving the room. Then, one night, Rebekah, who had enough of Mikael's abuse toward Klaus, took a knife with the intention of killing her father while he slept, but Elijah ultimately stopped her; however, he later vowed that he wished he had done the deed himself. One day, while Elijah and Klaus were sparring, Mikael watched them. Mikael was enraged that Klaus was showing off and being foolish when the Vikings were fighting for their survival. Once they were done, he came to Elijah for his sword and then attacked Klaus and humiliated him in front of the village. He then wondered aloud how Klaus was able to remain alive due to his impulsive behavior. At some point, Niklaus challenged Mikael to a duel, which Mikael initially won. However, when Mikael cut Klaus' starling necklace (which was meant to weaken him to prevent him from triggering his werewolf curse), Klaus became so enraged that he attacked Mikael, Mikael was so furious that Klaus had gained the upper hand that he impaled Klaus' shoulder with his sword and pinned him to a tree. Curious about the werewolves transformations, Klaus and Henrik went to spy on them one night during a full moon. Unfortunately, their presence was ultimately discovered by the werewolves, who were unable to control themselves and ended up mauling Henrik to death. Overwhelmed by the loss of another child, Mikael and Esther were desperate to cast a spell that would protect the family from more deaths. After Ayana refused to help them, citing the fact that the Spirits and Nature itself would not stand for such an imbalance, Mikael begged his wife Esther to do something using her powers as a witch. Esther obeyed Mikael's wishes and performed a variation of the Immortality Spell created by Qetsiyah, which involved calling upon the sun for life and the eternal white oak tree for immortality. He then offered his children wine laced with the doppelgänger Tatia's enchanted blood (as revealed in Bringing Out The Dead) and killed them soon after by driving his sword through their hearts. The Spirits of Nature, in order to try to maintain the balance, turned nature against them; the sun became their enemy, the flowers that grew at the base of the white oak tree, vervain, caused them pain upon contact and prevented compulsion, and the white oak tree that granted them immortality became the one thing on earth that could take it away. Mikael and his family later burned down the white oak tree to prevent it ever being used against them, but not before Mikael had secretly carved a stake. But, they soon learned with all this power came a terrible hunger, and none felt it more then Niklaus. Once Klaus had killed a human, Mikael and the rest of the family found out that he was actually a werewolf, born of an affair Esther had with a werewolf villager named Ansel. Upon seeing Klaus' first transformation as a true hybrid, Mikael stated, "He's a beast. An abomination!" Mikael realized that his wife was unfaithful to him and that Niklaus wasn't his son, and in his anger, he convinced Esther to cast a spell to keep Klaus's werewolf side dormant. While Esther prepared the spell, Mikael tied Klaus up in chains, demanding that Elijah help him when he stood nearby and looked guilty. Despite Klaus' pleas for Elijah to help him, he ended up listening to his father and helping Mikael chain Klaus to a post. Mikael later went out into the village to hunt down and kill Ansel, Klaus' father, as well as his entire family, not realizing that he was igniting an inter-species war that rages on even in the present day. Klaus was furious with his mother for making his werewolf side dormant and seemed to murder her in revenge, putting the blame on Mikael. Klaus convinced his siblings that Mikael had murdered their mother, probably out of anger for her infidelity, and they all ran from their father, fleeing back to the Old World. Mikael knew the truth of Esther's murder and his hate for Klaus only grew more intense, vowing to kill him for destroying their family. Over the next centuries, Mikael burned down half of Europe in his hunt for Klaus. 1702, Cadiz, Spain Mikael tracked his family down to Spain due to Kol's destructive antics. He killed Klaus's horse, Theo, putting its head on a pike before he burnt down the town in his hunt for his "bastard" step-son. His children managed to escape on a ship headed back to the New World, alluding Mikael for several more centuries. 1919, New Orleans In the year 1919, six months after Rebekah and Marcel used Genevieve to summon him, Mikael appeared in the streets of New Orleans and looking at the newspaper he got from Genevieve. Mikael later appeared at Rousseau's, where he watched Marcel and Rebekah. Later, shortly after Rebekah left him at the bar, Marcel went for a drink, and Mikael, who was also at the bar, approached him. He talked of how lucky Marcel was and remarked that his girlfriend (Rebekah) looked like his wife. Mikael then revealed his true identity and admitted that he had been observing Marcel before informing him that he knew he would do anything to get out from under Klaus' wing, even if it meant calling the one man on earth who hates Klaus the most, Mikael the Destroyer. Mikael also admitted that he had burned countless other cities like New Orleans while hunting his children. Mikael promised Marcel that he would leave Rebekah unharmed, as she was always his favorite, but he wanted his sons' exact location so he could kill Klaus. Later, Mikael went to see Elijah, and insisted that he just wanted to talk to him. Elijah was shocked and angry upon Mikael's return, and he reminded his father that he hunted him and his siblings for centuries, going so far as to burn half of Europe in his attempts to kill his family. Mikael corrected him by pointing out that he only ever hunted Klaus, and had no interest in killing his own children. He goes on to say that he was requesting Elijah's aid, though the meeting quickly became violent once Elijah refused him. Elijah replied that his father was a fool if he thought Elijah would betray his brother for anyone, even for his father. Mikael then reminded him of how his mother's affair led to Klaus' existence and Mikael's secret shame. He added, "Niklaus is an abomination. You do not talk to abominations. You do not reason with them, or try to change them. You ERASE THEM!" Mikael then shows him the white oak stake, which caused Elijah to start to fight him in order to stop him. However, Mikael quickly overpowered Elijah and stated that he either stands with his father or falls with Klaus. Once Elijah insisted that he was standing with his brother, Mikael stake him with a regular stake, leaving him incapacitated while Mikael left to go to the New Orleans Opera House. Walking into the theater, Mikael seated himself behind Klaus and pointed the white oak stake at his back, right next to his heart, while Klaus sat, clearly horrified. Mikael mocked Klaus when he referred to Mikael as "Father," and told him that his werewolf father would be embarrassed to have him as a son, just like he was before he knew the truth about his parentage. Mikael then revealed that he intended to humiliate Klaus before he killed him, and stated that he planned on killing everyone who knew Klaus existed, to ensure that no one would miss him after he was dead. Mikael then had the stage-hands open the curtains to the stage, revealing that he had killed Klaus' werewolf lover, Lana, as well as many of his friends, in addition to tying up Marcel next to them in a grotesque display. All the while, the audience was laughing hysterically, as Mikael had compelled them all to view the show as a comedy. Terrified, Klaus quickly rushed to the stage to help free Marcel, only to be stopped by Mikael, who threw him across the stage. Rebekah suddenly arrived and intervened, trying to free Marcel as well, but Mikael staked her with a regular stake and incapacitated her. Elijah, who had just recovered from his own staking, showed up just in time to help his siblings free, and he insisted that Marcel was as good as dead, as Mikael was feeding on him to replenish his strength. Mikael ultimately burned down the opera house, and while Mikael hunted his children down to the streets of the French Quarter, he shouted at them that they needed to finish the last act of Le Grand Guignol, which he referred to as their "tale of sorrows." He insisted that their constant fleeing was pointless, as he would always find them no matter what, but the children ended up able to run after all because Elijah stayed behind to lead Mikael away from them while they fled to safety. Mikael went on to burn down much of the city of New Orleans and slaughtered more vampires, leaving Marcel as one of the few survivors of his wrath. 1922, Chicago In the 1920's, three years after the New Orleans massacre, Mikael had tracked Rebekah and Niklaus to Chicago, where they were regular customers at Gloria's Bar. As it was Prohibition at the time, Mikael infiltrated the Chicago police force and became the Police Chief, using the fact that Gloria was running a speakeasy as an excuse to send the police officers to shoot up the bar with wooden bullets in search of his children. However, when Mikael finally arrived in the aftermath of the gunfight, Klaus and Rebekah had already vanished. Mikael questioned many of the bar's patrons, including Stefan Salvatore, but since Stefan was compelled to forget that he ever knew Klaus and Rebekah, he was unable to be of any help to him. Mikael realized that Klaus had compelled away Stefan's memories and informed the officers that they were done there, and began his search anew to find where his children had fled next. 1990's, Mystic Falls Seventy years later in the early 1990s, Mikael came to Mystic Falls, which had been his home nearly a thousand years prior, in search of the third and final Petrova doppelgänger, Elena Gilbert, who was just a baby at the time. He knew that Klaus would eventually learn of the existence of the newest human doppelgänger and intended to kill her before she could be used by Klaus to break his Hybrid Curse. Despite the Founder's Council's best efforts to kill Mikael, they were unsuccessful, and Abby Bennett Wilson, Elena's mother Miranda's best friend, decided to use her powers as a witch to neutralize Mikael by tapping into dark magic to desiccate him. She lured him out of town to Charlotte, North Carolina, and once he was incapacitated, she entombed him in a cemetery there, where he laid dormant for nearly twenty years. However, tales of Mikael, the vampire who hunts vampires, were still told by many throughout the centuries, and Katherine Pierce even mentioned that she had heard stories of him from her best friend Pearl in the 1800s, which was why she was ultimately the person who tracked him down and released him with the intention of killing Klaus for good. Throughout The Vampire Diaries Series |-|Season Three= At the end of The Reckoning,Mikael was revealed to be a vampire who hunted vampires. He was later revealed to be an Original Vampire, and the father of the Originals, or, in Klaus' case, his step-father. Mikael was also said to be the one person who could kill Klaus for good. However, when the Mystic Falls Gang looked into Mikael's identity, they learned from Anna that he had been neutralized and entombed by a witch in the 1990s. When Jeremy Gilbert, Damon Salvatore, and Katherine asked Anna where they could find him, she insisted that Mikael should not be awakened because he would kill all of them, hinting to Mikael's reputation as the vampire who hunts vampires. Katherine chose to ignore her warning, and she and Jeremy eventually located his tomb in Charlotte, North Caroline. When Katherine opened his tomb, Mikael opened his eyes, though he was still too desiccated and chained up to move. In Smells Like Teen Spirit, Katherine spent most of her time trying to get Mikael to rise from his coffin by attempting to get him to feed. However, Mikael simply did not drink any of the blood she offered until Katherine finally found a mourner at the cemetery, bit into his neck, and let the blood drip into Mikael's open mouth. Upon feeding, Mikael's body returned to its natural, undesiccated state, but he became angry at Katherine for feeding him human blood, though he did not go into detail as to why that bothered him before he fell asleep again. Hours later, Mikael awoke again and apologized to Katherine for his behavior before revealing that he has abstained from drinking human blood for as long as he can remember. Katherine expressed her disappointment at Mikael, and assumed that Mikael didn't have the power to kill Klaus. However, Mikael insisted that he could indeed kill Klaus, and that he will as soon as he was freed from his chains. Katherine broke the chains binding him, and when Mikael rubbed at his stiff elbows, she remarked that if he drank human blood, he would feel much better. When Mikael informed her that he didn't feed on the living, Katherine became confused, until Mikael pulled her toward him and bit into her neck, much to her horror, drinking her blood until she fell unconscious. In Ordinary People, ''Mikael came to Mystic Falls and met with Stefan and Damon at a bar, knowing exactly who they were without introduction because of his experience as a Vampire Hunter. Mikael asked Stefan a few questions about Klaus's plans and his current location, but Stefan could not answer them because Klaus had compelled him not to tell anyone his secrets. Damon was unimpressed by Mikael's interrogation and jokingly asked if this was the extent of his capabilities. As a ploy to get Stefan to give him answers, Mikael inserted his hand in Damon's chest and threatened to rip his heart out if Stefan didn't tell him ''something about what Klaus was doing. Stefan hesitated for a long moment, but he did eventually find a way around Klaus' compulsion by telling Mikael that he could lure Klaus back to town. Satisfied for the moment, Mikael removed his hand from Damon's chest, but before he left, he warned the brothers that if they went back on their word, he would drive a stake through their hearts as well as Klaus'. In Homecoming, Mikael helped Elena and the Salvatore Brothers to lure Klaus back to Mystic Falls so he could kill him for good. To do this, the gang needed Klaus to believe that Mikael had truly been neutralized, and their story needed to be as true as possible to limit the risk of Stefan's compulsion betraying their plans. Mikael began by instructing Elena to dagger him temporarily so Stefan wouldn't technically be lying when he told Klaus that Mikael tried to kill Elena, forcing her to dagger him to protect herself. Once he was reawakened, Rebekah was waiting beside him as she prepared for the Homecoming Dance. Knowing that Rebekah hated him, Mikael assured her that he never intended to kill her or Elijah-- he just wanted to kill Klaus because in revenge for killing Esther and Henrik's death. Rebekah argued that if Mikael was hunting Klaus, he was hunting her, and informed him that while she was well aware of what Klaus had done, including recently discovering that Klaus killed their mother, she still blamed Mikael for making Klaus into the person he was and for turning them into monsters in the first place. Later at the boarding house, Mikael showed Damon the white oak stake he had carved prior to burning the ancient tree down, which is the only weapon that could permanently kill an Original. Damon asked him why he feeds on vampires. His reply was:"I had a hand in creating vampires, but the bloodlust was never my intention. Over the centuries, I've learned to feed from the predator, not the innocent." When Stefan came into the room, Mikael viciously fed on Stefan until he passed out, as the two had made an earlier plan to incapacitate Stefan to ensure his compulsion wouldn't ruin the plan. Afterward, he and Damon left the house to head to the Lockwood Mansion to proceed with their plan. At the mansion, Mikael found himself surrounded by Klaus' hybrids, who were acting as bodyguards around the perimeter of the house. When Klaus answered the door to find Mikael on the porch, he told his step-father that his hybrids have been given orders to kill Mikael at his command. Mikael reminded him that the hybrids couldn't kill him, since he is immortal, but Klaus just replied, "But it will make a hell of a party game". bursting into flames after getting staked with the White Oak Stake.]] Mikael then grabbed "Elena" as a hostage (who, unbeknownst to both of them, was actually Katherine in disguise) and threatened to kill her if Klaus didn't come outside to face him, knowing that she was the key to Klaus creating more hybrids. Klaus called his bluff, so Mikael proved he was serious by stabbing "Elena" in the back with a knife. While Klaus was processing Elena's death, Damon appeared behind Klaus and stabbed him in the back with the white oak stake, though he missed Klaus' heart. As Damon was about to make the final blow, Stefan arrived (having been revived by Katherine earlier) and tackled him, knocking the stake out of his hands in the process. Klaus took advantage of everyone's distraction by grabbing the stake and driving it through Mikael's heart, and watched in shock as Mikael burst into flames and died, taking the only white oak stake with him. In The Ties That Bind, ''it was revealed that Bonnie's mother (Abby Bennett Wilson) was the witch who entombed Mikael by casting a spell to desiccate his body and trapping him in a cemetery in Charlotte. In ''Do Not Go Gentle, Esther, after losing the Bennett family bloodline as a power source, decided to make an Enhanced Original Vampire with the same Immortality Spell she used on her husband Mikael, and their children, so that this new vampire could kill her children and finally end the vampire species. Esther made the final decision to turn Alaric Saltzman into an Enhanced Original Vampire, as she spent time nurturing Alaric's dark alter-ego when he would die wearing his Gilbert Ring, and knew that Alaric's repressed hatred for vampires would only be even more heightened after he turned. Her goal was that Alaric would become the ultimate vampire hunter like her husband Mikael before him, and would rid the world of the "plague" she believed she caused. Esther turned the last remaining White Oak Stake indestructible with Alaric's Gilbert ring magically melted and coated around the stake with a spell. Esther turns Alaric, and arms him with the indestructible White Oak Stake, making it the ultimate weapon for the ultimate hunter, as Mikael was before him.